New Report Details Massive Impact of Methane Emissions on Near-Term Climate Picture

A new report from the national advocacy group Food & Water Watch presents a stark picture of the immense amount of climate-killing methane emissions emanating from the top two sources of such pollution: fossil fuel fracking and corporate factory farming.

While carbon dioxide still remains a larger source of greenhouse gas emissions, methane has a vastly outsized impact on climate stability in the near term, as it has an 86 times stronger warming effect than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.

Among the findings of the report:

• Fossil fuel extraction, processing and distribution operations in the U.S. released 26.4 million metric tons of methane pollution in 2022.
• Dairy, beef and hog factory farms in the U.S. released 3.2 million metric tons of methane pollution in 2022.

“This report demonstrates the incredibly dangerous impact methane pollution is having on our climate. As global temperature records are being shattered month after month, we clearly see the danger is already manifesting – and it will only worsen in the coming years if something isn’t done immediately to clamp down on these high-polluting industries,” said Food & Water Watch Research Director Amanda Starbuck. “While the right wing and their Project 2025 playbook are calling for more and more destructive oil and gas production, science and reality are screaming that we must move decisively in the opposite direction.”

Food & Water Watch (FWW) estimates that in 2022, fracking across the U.S. released lifecycle emissions of over 26.4 million metric tons of methane.This includes emissions from well sites, processing, and distribution, but excludes combustion. This is equivalent to over 500 million cars driven for a year, or 255 billion gallons of gasoline burned. Peer-reviewed research has shown that the EPA consistently underestimates the scale of this pollution.

On the industrial agriculture front, FWW estimates that on-farm emissions from hogs, beef cattle and dairy cows living on U.S. factory farms totaled up to 3.2 million metric tons of methane in 2022. This is equivalent to 65.3 million cars being driven for a year, or driving around the Equator over 28 million times. (This does not include emissions from cattle feed production, which makes up the lion’s share of the livestock industry’s greenhouse gas emissions.)

Most on-farm livestock emissions come from enteric fermentation, a natural process within the digestive system of ruminants. The report estimates that mega-dairies dominate these emissions, with nearly 7 million cows together producing 1.06 million metric tons of methane every year. The 11 to 12 million beef cattle on factory farms produce 507,000 metric tons of methane annually. The other major source of on-farm emissions is manure management. FWW estimates that emissions from manure management of mega-dairy cows total up to 1.49 million metric tons of methane every single year.